From VOA Learning English,
this is the Education Report.
Recently, there have been efforts
to make sure children in Africa
get a good strong education.
But a new report says governments
are losing about $129 billion every year
on poor quality education.
As a result, about one in four students in poor countries
cannot read a complete sentence,
that represents about 175 million young people.
The report comes from UNESCO -
the United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization.
It says poor teacher training and spending cuts
are just two of the reasons for underperforming school systems.
Pauline Rose, an education specialist directed the report.
She says more teachers are needed across Africa,
especially in countries south of the Saharan desert.
She says the area would need about 225,000 additional teachers
a year to guarantee a primary school education
for all boys and girls by 2015.
Miss Rose says governments like to save money
by using contract teachers.
These educators are not government employees
but work under a special agreement.
Contract teachers can be easily dismissed
if found to be underperforming.
They also earn far less money than teachers working for the government.
Contract teachers represent more than half of
the teaching work force in many West African countries.
Pauline Rose says teachers need to have a strong desire
to help children learn.
She says they should want to be in the classroom
instead of doing other jobs.
In recent years, financial support for education
has gone down or stayed the same in many countries.
The UNESCO report says governments
will need to increase spending on education.
Miss Rose says governments can do better on collecting taxes
and making sure everyone pays their fair share of taxes.
She says governments could also offer good housing
to make sure impoverished areas have enough teachers.
The report says South Africa gives six times more money
to students in areas with low education levels and high unemployment.
Malawi is creating teacher colleges to train new candidates
for teaching positions in skills for rural areas.
And Ethiopia is urging mentors and supervisors
to help support teaching candidates.
And that's the Education Report from VOA Learning English,
I'm Mario Ritter.